


the price we pay

by closingdoors



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Infinity War, Soul Stone (Marvel), also this hasnt been edited so theres probably tons of typos but its half 2 in the morning im tired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 02:06:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15132689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closingdoors/pseuds/closingdoors
Summary: Tony. Pepper. A soul stone.





	the price we pay

**Author's Note:**

> “So it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.”  
> \- Brushstrokes of a Gadfly, E. A. Bucchianeri

In the after, she sees the stone only once.

It's a small thing. No bigger than the average pebble on a beach. Steve sits beside her at the table as he opens the small case it's being kept in. He grips her wrist when she reaches out for it, telling her that no mortal can wield its power. She itches to shake him off. This thing - this tiny, orange, otherwise inconsequential object - is the only thing she has left of him. Of Tony. He's  _in there._

Pepper feels herself beginning to cry. Steve releases her wrist and her hands fall useless against the table. It'd been her idea to see it. She thought that it would help her process - to understand why she didn't have a body to bury; not even a suit. Looking at it now, she just feels insurmountable grief. Tony had always been the brightest light, the loudest voice in the room. It's cruel and unfair that he had to die. Worse that he's reduced to stuck in a stone. 

"I'm sorry, Pepper," Steve says quietly. He rests a hand on her shoulder.

She wants to shake him off. She wants to scream, she wants to yell, because what right does he have to say these things, to comfort her when he made Tony's living life hell? 

"What will happen to it?" 

Pepper doesn't look at him.

"The stone? Well... Fury says they're gonna put it someplace safe."

"Locked away," she barely murmurs.

"Yeah."

Steve sounds as bitter as her, but it's no consolation.

Her hands circle around the case, pull it closer to her, and Steve's hand slips away. Through her tears she peers closely at it, desperately searching for any sign of Tony, for that one last glimpse. Anything she could understand to make it real. But there's nothing. Just orange staring up at her. Pepper snaps the case closed and leaves the compound, driving in circles for hours.

 

*

 

There's a memory that always comes to her in dreams. She's standing in the workshop doorway, watching him talk out loud while designing suit upgrades, JARVIS replying tiredly to his suggestions. She can't remember a word that comes out of his mouth, or what JARVIS responds with, but something one of them says makes her laugh. When Tony turns to see her, he's smiling too.

 

*

 

At the funeral, she has Rhodey do the eulogy. The young boy who'd fought at Tony's side on Titan, too young for all of this, now sits by her side. The rest of the Avengers are a row behind them. She wants desperately to kick them out. They have no right to be there - except Bruce, perhaps Thor. The others... 

While some, most likely all, of those attending the funeral probably believe she's too emotional to do the eulogy herself, that's not the truth of it. The reality is that she cannot look at the sea of faces who didn't know Tony like she did and speak of him as though they'd understand what she's enduring. The businessmen, the once-SHIELD agents, the team behind her - they would expect to hear a eulogy dedicated to Iron Man. While Iron Man had been a facet of Tony, that's not who he was completely. They wouldn't expect her to speak of how Tony had been the first one to make her try a pb&j sandwich. That he had donated to the victims' families of Sokovia anonymously. That he insisted on brushing his teeth before they kissed in the morning.

No, she knows, they want her to speak of suits, of weapons, of iron - not the soft, malleable mass that Tony had really been made of. So she won't give them her memories. 

On the podium, Rhody is broad-shouldered, his face a mask. His hands straighten the piece of paper once before he speaks.

"Tony Stark was my best friend."

His voice breaks and he closes his eyes. Beside her, the boy's hand sneaks over to squeeze hers briefly, and she bites her tongue to keep herself from crying. She can't even remember the boy's name. She remembers meeting him, when everyone had come back, resurrected from ash. He had told her his name, probably, but she had been consumed with what the right side winning meant.

"He didn't deserve to die. He was a man full of life. He had so much left to give to the world. That's all I have to say," Rhodey folds the paper and meets her eyes. "The truth. That's all I have."

When Rhodey joins her other side, she reaches for his hand and murmurs  _thank you._ In front of them the empty coffin is lowered for cremation.

 

*

 

After everyone around her had disintegrated into ash, Pepper had watched days pass by as though she hadn't really been in them at all. She'd paced the halls of the Avengers compound, of their Malibu home, of their apartment in New York, and she'd tried to make sense of a world that no longer had the people she loved in it. The only person in her family who'd survived was her Uncle Morgan. She'd sobbed, ugly and loud, for a good forty minutes after that phone call.

And then, thirteen days after, Tony had walked through the door. He'd already been explaining - Titan, repairs on the suit, the boy dying in his arms - but she hadn't listened to a word he'd said. All that had mattered was that he was alive. His body had been bruised and bloodied, the scar on his abdomen ugly and red, but she had reacquainted her body with his desperately. They'd married two weeks later in a registrar's office in downtown New York, Rhodey their witness, three days before Tony died.

 

*

 

Pepper finds herself sitting with Bruce one afternoon, watching him work. She has no idea what it is he's been working on. But sitting in the compound workshop, listening to the sound of FRIDAY, studying the way his hands are so careful and precise with the material he's shaping - she almost convinces herself that it's the life she used to have.

Bruce has his back to her when he speaks.

"I could get him out of there."

She doesn't ask  _who_ or  _what_. She already knows. She rests her elbows on the desk and waits for Bruce to look at her.

"How?"

Bruce holds up the small device in his hands. The thing he's been working on for two weeks while she's sat by his side.

"Would it reverse what he did?" She asks, staring at the device.

"No. No, of course not," Bruce assures her. 

"And it wouldn't bring him back."

Bruce doesn't answer that one verbally. He shakes his head and cradles the device in his lap like it's a precious thing. It hadn't been a question, anyway. From the moment Happy had switched from dust back to being she had known there was no way Tony would ever come back. The power that they'd fought had been too strong, as loathe as she is to admit it. Tony was gone, dead, and she's far from foolish - she will never believe in a loophole, in a miracle, that will bring him back. It's not the reality they live in. Even in her dreams, she doesn't picture him coming back. She simply remembers how he had been: beautiful and happy.

"Where will he go?" Pepper finds herself asking.

"Wherever it is souls go."

Pepper studies Bruce's profile. He's aged since she'd last seen him in that New York park. The lines in his face are carved deep. The weariness to his frame is heavy. It hangs around him like a cloak.

"Do you believe in the afterlife, Bruce?"

He doesn't respond. He doesn't look at her. He places the device on the desk between them.

"Yeah, me neither," she murmurs.

Bruce meets her eyes.

"Do you want to be there when I do it?"

Pepper reaches for the device. It's small, barely bigger than she remembers the stone being, and cool to the touch. Metal. 

"No," she decides eventually. "I don't need to watch him leave again."

 

*

 

The day before Tony dies, the rest of the Avengers turn up on their doorstep.

It turns out that Tony had been in touch with them for a week. They'd devised a plan, he tells her, something which would bring the universe back. 

The rest of the team wait downstairs while she says her goodbyes. 

Pepper watches him going about the bedroom. Grabbing the nanotech suit, the blue so similar to the arc reactor affixed firmly to his chest, and fiddling with some controls on FRIDAY. She sits herself on the edge of the bed and she already knows what he's going to do.

"Tony," she murmurs. He stops what he's doing instantly. "Come sit with me."

He does. She twines their hands together and he smiles at her.

"It's gonna work, you know," Tony says. "Then they'll all be back. Even Happy."

She takes a deep breath. 

"I am so... so incredibly grateful to have had you in my life."

Tony squeezes her hand.

"I'll come home," he lies.

Pepper sighs. She watches his shoulders drop. Yet he tries to remain upbeat. Like hiding the truth from her will make any of this hurt less. As though she hasn't always known that this is where they were always going. From the moment she first found out about the suit, when he had been ridden with bullet holes but still full of jokes, she had known she would wind up grieving him.

There's things she wants to say. She doesn't know how to put them into words. She's had years to think about this and yet she's coming up empty. Everything is numb except for the feel of his hand locked with hers.

"Pep?" His smile drops a fraction then. "You and me. Was it - did I..."

He stops, sighing. She squeezes his hand.

"I was always happiest with you," she tells him hoarsely. Something settles in him then. Roots him. He doesn't grip her hand so fiercely. "I'd choose you every time."

"FRIDAY's sent you an access code to some stuff. In case I don't come back," he tells her. "Promise me you'll look at it."

"I promise."

Tony kisses her then. Softly and slowly. As though he's learning her for the first time all over again. She lets her hands rest on his biceps.

"I love you," he tells her.

"You too," she replies, and even though they're on a time limit, even though the avengers are right downstairs, even though the universe needs saving, she winds her arms around his shoulders and pulls him down on top of her.

She waits until he's out of the door and she's alone, naked among cold sheets, to cry.

 

*

 

The voicemail on her phone is mostly static. Towards the end of it, she hears his voice.  _Pepper._ She's listened to it thirty-nine times since he died and yet it knocks the breath out of her every time.  _I'm sorry._

 

*

 

There's a huge space where he used to be. She sells their Malibu home, briefly considers selling the New York penthouse, but she keeps it empty instead. Most of the time, she lives in Tony's room at the compound. All of the Avengers - bar Bruce - have vacated the place. Even Vision. It had surprised her at first, and then it hadn't. That these people who'd flitted in and out of Tony's life so temporarily would leave the place he had built to unite them. When she speaks to Bruce, she learns that the majority of them have dispersed. Steve, Natasha and Bucky are off the radar, Vision checks in sometimes and mentions Wanda, and Clint has officially retired. For good this time. 

The boy visits often. He and Bruce look over the suit Tony had made for him. It's torn in places, blood stains in the other, and a hole in one of the webbed wings. She watches them fix it best they can but she can hear everything they aren't saying. 

 

*

 

The nights are long and cold. They bed is too big and too empty. It's hard to let go of the routines they used to go through. She almost misses half-waking in the night because of his incessant fidgeting and kicking his shin to get him to stop.

She suspends all of Stark Industries contracts and moves back home for two months. Her mother and father are alive, her sister visits with her nephew, and Pepper tries to feel anything but emptiness when she holds him.

 

*

 

When she returns, it's to their penthouse. Bruce had sent her a message saying that he'd be away from the compound for a couple days - to help Fury with something, though she doesn't ask what, she's just glad Bruce is finally getting out for the first time since Tony died - and she doesn't want to wander the halls alone. Their penthouse is warm from the summer evening humidity and Pepper watches the sun set from the balcony, old footage of her and Tony playing on her phone.

By the time night falls, she's retired to bed. It's impossible for her to get sleep these days. Her doctor had prescribed medication, and she'd taken it for a while, but it only made her lethargic through the day. It's how, four months after he died, she finds herself inputting the access codes he'd sent her through FRIDAY.

_Pepper._

His voice through the speakers doesn't make her jump. She tucks herself under the sheets and closes her eyes to the sound of his voice.

_There's a lot of things I want to say. I know, I know, this is morbid and I'm a jerk, but I don't want to forget to say anything. I need to know that you..._

There's a pause.

_I never thought I could've loved anything like I love you. And, god, I swear to you - you're probably the one person who could convince me not to give my life for theirs. I know you won't. You're a good person. Far more than I deserved._

She makes a small noise of disagreement.

 _It's true,_ his voice says, and she covers her mouth when a cry threatens to break through.  _I don't know how I ever got lucky enough to be yours._ _You know, the only reason I hired you in the first place is because you were the first person since my parents died to say no to me. Had a whole bunch of people around me who just wanted to please me. Then you walk through the door and act like I could just be some regular joe off the street. Thank you._

Pepper shifts in the sheets, onto her side, curling her body up into a tight ball. She's used to having no space in the bed. He'd hog it all. Now there's too much room, too much freedom of movement. Even closing her eyes, she can't trick herself into believing he's there with her.

_I'm sorry. For what I'm going to do. I'm sorry that you're gonna be alone. But god, Pep, you're ten times stronger than me. You know I'd fall apart without you. I know you'll be okay in the end. But don't be too okay. That'll bruise my ego. Can't have that._

She snorts.

_I know it's stupid but - you know how bow and arrows lives out on a farm? I kinda wished we'd have that life. You know, when the day was over, when the threat was gone... I don't know if that's something you would've wanted. But I thought about it a **lot**. You and me out in the middle of nowhere. Even a kid if I wore you down. So I. Well, I built a farm. FRIDAY has the co-ordinates. You don't have to live there or anything. You don't even have to visit if you don't want to. But it's all I have left to give you, Pep. And I'm sorry that we won't get that option. To argue about moving out there, for you to tell me CEOs can't just leave... I would've killed for it. Literally._

There's a long stretch, and she almost thinks that it's gone, that that's it. And then his voice floats through one last time.

_By the way. There's a kid out there. His name's Peter Parker. Sometimes goes by Spiderboy. Man. Whatever. I've been mentoring him. Keep an eye on him for me?_

_Alright. I don't really know how to end this. I guess... well, I love you. And I'm sorry._

She holds her breath and prepares to let go.

_That will be all, Mrs Stark._


End file.
